Well I thought I was going to have to throw this one out; but kept at it until I got down far enough that I was able to rid the blank of 90% of the Moons Surface. That left me with a few holes out in the deck and a small area along the left rail. Spacled those and finished up with a 2 3/4” thick flat deck and slightly up turned rail on the bottom. Something from nothing. After selling off 300 or so Echotechs, I am now down to the “dregs”. About 70 or 80 unstringered mostly longboard blanks. Some are heavy, some are lite. Some will be undergoing cancer treatment at the local “Oregon Shapers” SkunkWorks and treatment center. Some may undergo surgery. Others Radiation. But, after selling all those blanks, these are now free. So as they say; “Something from nothing”. Already have a shop interested.

Rooster—- Love that planer! Primarily because it was some shapers, somewhere who probably gave it up and went to Arizona. The base had been cut and it had Balsa shavings inside of it. The depth cut clicker was already gone. Pete offered to swap out that homemade dust cover, but I told him “no way”. That’s a part of it’s character. Lowel

Great save. Reminds me of when Clark Foam shut down and we started seeing blanks from China. I bought a handful of rejects to learn shaping PU foam and it was similar, but not quite as bad as that blank. Back then I didn't have an electric planer, so cutting through the hard crust was quite a chore. Prior to that I only shaped EPS for compsands, and used sanding blocks and surforms.

Did you get into any of those Elova blanks?? Fiberglass Hawaii had them in for awhile. From Venzuela, Argentina, somehere in SA. I took one over to Gott to be glassed once. My comment was that it was more Spackle than foam. Holes. Not black holes, just holes.

No, there is a guy here named Rich King selling SUP boards made in China. He tried to get into the PU blank business, and the first batches had a lot of problems. He was selling those off and being very up front about the condition of the blanks. Many had paper embedded in them and he would say to check them out very carefully. They were all for short boards and had a very hard crust. I've shaped other PU blanks since then that didn't have that hard crust, or air bubbles. I think they were Bennet blanks made in Mexico. Pau Hana Surf Supply had a connection to a company here on Oahu and I was able to get them at a really good price. That was probably 10 years ago.

Shaping PU is like running a hot knife through soft butter compared to the EPS we were using.

Yes, that’s the way these Echotechs that I bought at auction were. Very inconsistent. Some were lighter, some were harder, some had holes, some not a single hole. Some had paper and a crust, others looked like a first quality Clark. That tells me that the company just didn’t spend enough time dialing in the formula and the process. Other companies stuck it out and now they are acceptable and successful. I’ll have to take a pic of a couple of the ones that have paper and a smooth crust. Pretty hard to believe that there is anything shapeable under that. Mahalo and Aloha Shark ..